


A Story About The Author

by literalcat



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Self-Harm, Transgender, basically robin ranting about his life through an OC, chrom catches on and writes an answering story, idk im not finished yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:59:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literalcat/pseuds/literalcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The more he read, the more unnerved he became, until he reached the conclusion that the story couldn’t possibly have come from someone’s imagination- this was written from experience. This story was about its author.<i></i></i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Robin's just a sad kid who doesn't know how to deal with himself. Chrom's just a perceptive kid who picks up on it.</i>
  </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Story About The Author

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is sort of abstract and weird, but I wanted to explore making my headcanons more of a reality. There will be more chapters of this, I assure you!! I just don't really know when...

_“For as long as she could remember, Raeven disliked herself._

_Not exactly hated, but… Intensely disliked. She would look in the mirror and feel instantly repulsed, like something was not quite right. Whenever she spoke, she thought her voice was annoying and strange, as if it were a terrible mutation of a sound. She liked the feeling of long hair, but wasn’t fond of how it looked._

_As she grew older, the dislike grew deeper, until it eventually became a heated, angry contempt. She began to avoid looking in the mirror when she brushed her hair, as to not see her face, and never let people take pictures of her. She felt unbearably uncomfortable when complimented, and couldn’t stand the notion of being pretty or appealing. Even the thought of growing up made her squirm- when she got her first period and was proudly told she was “becoming a woman”, Raeven yelled and cried._

_When she turned twelve and her body took shape, she hated that, too. Her breasts felt wrong and out of place, and she despised the way they looked. She didn’t mind the rest of her body- it was an odd shape, and she was indifferent to it- but from the chest up, Raeven wanted to erase everything she saw._

_The hatred grew into self-loathing, and the self-loathing brought with it a hollow, empty blackness. It wormed its way inside her heart and stayed there, stubborn as ink, scarring her every thought. She hated everything about herself, head to toe, with such fiery intenseness it filled her with both anger and sorrow. Despairingly, she one day typed into her search bar “why do I hate myself?” in a half-cry for help, and was surprised by what she found._

_Hundreds of images, black-and-white and usually with text over it, filled her screen. They said things like “food or a thigh gap?” and “ monsters don’t sleep under your bed, they sleep inside your head”. There were pictures of cut-up arms, razor blades, girls with scars and hair hanging over their faces. They looked sad, and beautiful, and Raeven wanted to be that way, too. Maybe she’d feel comfortable then- maybe this would fix it._

_So she started to make little incisions on her thighs- only small ones, and only one or two, with her mother’s razor. She felt proud of the scars, then. She thought they were pretty. And so she started to cut more and more, until both her upper thighs were all but thin red lines, bleeding in the shower. Raeven had begun to like the pain, half-feeling she deserved it, half-feeling it made her look beautiful. She stopped eating and took to measuring herself daily on the kitchen scales, excited when she saw she’d lost 5 or 10 kilograms. She’d tricked herself into thinking she was happy with this- happy with being ”dark” and sad._

_Once, she cut so deeply into her thigh that a thick sheet of crimson bled out, and coated her entire leg. She panicked, heart caught, and the full force of what she’d done spread horror throughout her body. She didn’t tell her mother, nor anyone else but two of her closest online friends- afraid they’d judge her, she didn’t say how it happened- but they didn’t ask questions- they just reassured her, telling her to bandage it immediately, and she did._

_After that, Raeven realised how serious depression was. She no longer liked her scars, and she realised she felt awful about starving herself. She cried in her room that night, vowing to never starve or cut herself ever again. For a long, long while, she upheld both. And for the first time in years, Raeven was truly proud of herself. She’d started on a slight road to recovery, which was an enormous achievement on its own, and felt infinitely happy with herself._

_But when the holidays ended, and she was in her second year of high school, Raeven’s entire being collapsed into stress, sadness and newly refreshed self-contempt._

_The same cycle continued for years, the only thing changing for the better being her opinion of her body. She no longer cared about her weight, but self-harm had become a habit; she’d cut, and cry, and in the morning, shamefully regret what she had done. As silly as it felt to say, the only thing that kept her hanging on was music and her friends, both of whom had grown exceptionally close to her._

_Raeven one day opened a tumblr, only to follow her favourite artists and a few others. But the longer she spent there, the more time she began to find things out about herself. She learnt she wasn’t unnatural and strange- she was asexual. She learnt she wasn’t broken, she was depressed. She learnt she wasn’t emotional and childish; she had anxiety. Strangely, these facts made her happy, as if the labels were comforting and welcoming._

_But even through all of this, something was not quite right. Raeven still hated her face, her breasts, her hair, her voice. She still hated being complimented, she still hated having attention drawn to her. She didn’t feel worthless and hopeless, but she didn’t quite feel better anymore, either- until she came across a curious story, about a “transgender” girl. Not quite understanding what “transgender” meant, and assuming it meant cross-dressing, she read the article- and found that the phrase meant something quite different._

_The girl- Leelah- became Raeven’s hero, and her story was powerfully moving. She had killed herself  because she felt alone, oddly set apart, and unloved as a transgender girl- it resonated deeply with Raeven, though she fiercely wished Leelah was still alive. But even after reading that, praying for Leelah and reserving a special place in her heart for her, it took a long time for Raeven to realise that he had never, ever been a girl._

_It started slowly- awkwardly. Raeven noticed he preferred the idea of being a boy- having short hair, and a flat chest- but did nothing. And then, for a while, he identified as genderfluid- he was so used to being a “girl” that he didn’t know what he was or how to feel._

_But eventually, after a deep breath and many confused, horrible days, he mustered up the courage to change his pronouns. Raeven felt butterflies rise in his chest, but they were exciting and warm, and filled him with a giddy happiness._

_A day and a simple question later, Raeven had his hair cut very short. When he looked in the mirror now, he found he liked himself a little more- he laughed, and tears gathered in his eyes. Raeven was finally himself. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a boy. When he talked, he did it with confidence. He found he liked to sing, and was even proud of his own voice. It didn’t anymore matter what his body looked like or how feminine he was- Raeven was a boy, and nobody could change that._

_But, on horrible occasion, he felt trapped and insecure- he wasn’t out to anyone outside of the internet, because he strongly doubted anyone would understand. On those days, the words “she” and “her” and “girl” would cut him to the core, eating away at his mind; an incessant nagging that reminded him he would never really hear someone call him a boy, never hear someone accept him for who he was, never have anyone care about his pronouns. The little voice told him that day could be years away, if it happened at all, and it wasn’t worth waiting. It said it’d be so much easier to just die._

_When he got home, he’d shut the blinds in his room and cry into his pillow until night had fallen. Sometimes, this lasted no longer than a day- other times, it went on for a week, or even an entire month. Regardless, for hours at a time, Raeven would cry. He’d cry in despair and hatred of himself, screaming, falling back into old habits, and usually forgetting to eat or shower._

_But, dreadful as they were, those times passed, and he afterwards felt a little better. After all, is scars, mental and physical, were healing. His friends supported him. He had a binder now. He liked himself much more, accepting a lot about his body. Of course, this changed often, but beyond all of this,_ _despite his struggles and self-hatred, for today, at least, he felt comfortable in his own skin. Just for today, one of the few good days he had, Raeven felt content."_

* * *

 

 

Robin finished typing, hand aching, and, after a brief moment of contemplation, posted the story on his tumblr.

**“Hey, everyone! Sorry I kind of dropped off the face of the Earth for a while- some things happened- but I’m back, with a now fully-developed OC! I was refraining from talking about him until I’d perfected his character and backstory, so I’m sorry I haven’t mentioned him until now. Anyway, meet Raeven!**

**If you have any questions about him, please let me know. I’d love to talk!”**


End file.
